Home sweet home

Well, back home after two weeks of touring various spring training camps in Florida and Arizona, and have to say, what a headache. Not going, mind you, but returning. Two separate airlines, two separate terminals, two trips through the security line, luggage lost — all just to get from Phoenix to San Francisco. Yeah, traveling sure is glamorous. Speaking of which, if anything can be done about the rude attitudes showed my most airline employees these days, let me know.

Anyway, thanks for the rant, and sorry for brief break in my entries. Internet is tough to come by in Arizona and couldn’t connect to blog Sunday, spent all day Monday traveling, and well, tomorrow was a day off. So back to it today, with some brief observations.

— Brace yourself for bad news regarding A’s center fielder Mark Kotsay.
His many meetings with various doctors in California, and the lack of information released despite three opinions on his MRI are awfully fishy. My guess is that he’s been told he needs surgery at some point. Now when that surgery would need to be probably needs to be determined, and perhaps that’s what’s going on right now. Let’s face it, if these doctors were telling Kotsay to rest and rehab, he’d be back in Arizona by now.

— So far, so good for shortstop Bobby Crosby. But it’s hard to believe he’ll be ready to go by Opening Day. On Sunday, he was swinging at 75 percent effort (his words, not ours), and not until he works his way up to 100 percent, then takes a day off after reaching 100 percent, will he play in a Cactus League game. Opening Day is only 3 1/2 weeks away, so even if Crosby is physcially ready by then, he probably won’t be game ready.

— So far, go great for Boston Red Sox ace Daisuke Matsuzaka. Dice-K is living up to the hype, impressing in bullpen sessions, and exhibition game against college kids and then in his Grapefruit League opener against Florida (three scoreless innings in that one). He pounds the strike zone, and clearly trusts his stuff. It’ll be interesting to see how the Red Sox handle him, because in Japan, Matsuzaka was not coddled with a pitch-count. In fact, he threw 103 pitches in a bullpen session at the outset of camp.

— Heard an interesting question on the radio the other day: Who will play more games? Crosby or Barry Bonds. The answer on the radio was Bonds, and at this point, I tend to agree. Nothing against Crosby, but backs are a tricky thing, and until he shows he can play a couple of months without incident, then I’m assuming his status is fragile.

— By the way, Marco Scutaro is quietly raking again.

— Also, fantasy leaguers, you should scoop up Milton Bradley. He looks like he’s ready for a monster year.

— Meanwhile in the Bonds vs. Zito debate, Bonds is the early winner. He was far more into his role as Paula Abdul during Giants Idol than Zito seemed to be in Giants Idol 2.